


Clint's Innocent

by Walkinthegarden



Series: First Innocent [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint gets kidnapped, Gen, Nightmares, Why Clint didn't Kill Natasha, implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkinthegarden/pseuds/Walkinthegarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint can't forget the first innocent that died under his watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clint's Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> First in a series on the first person that died under each Avenger's Watch

You never forget the first innocent that dies under your watch. Your memory of them, however short it is, becomes a part of you. It is always there, easily accessible even if you want to shove it away and never think about it again. It’s easier after them, not much, just not as horrific as that first one. But there is always that moment, that terrifying second where the any innocent’s face becomes the face of that first one and you relive it all over again in that one second. The longer you’re in the field the easier it gets to control it, or at least get to the point where it doesn’t control you.

 

Clint’s first innocent was worse then most of the others in S.H.E.I.L.D. It’d been his very first assignment. It was supposed to be routine, something that had to be done but wasn’t dangerous…

 

… if only it happened the way it was supposed to.

 

He was captured by a small terrorist group and taken to their Headquarters deep in a mountain between Austria and Switzerland. There he was placed in a room that resembled a cave, lit only by three electric lanterns that reminded him of camping.

 

She’d been laying on the floor when he arrived and they chained him to the wall.

 

The first thing he’d noticed about her was the fact that she appeared to have been tortured. The bottoms of her arms were skinned raw, probably from scrapping them against the stone walls while they whipped her back (there were scars old and new). He couldn’t see her face, her dark red hair shielding it from view but it didn’t bother him at the time because he couldn’t stop staring at her bloody ankle. Unlike him she only had one cuff, by the one ankle to the wall. He felt sick when he realized that there were spikes on the inner cuff digging into her skin.

 

He’d tried to get her to talk to him but she didn’t say anything. For a minute or two he’d thought she was dead until he noticed the rise and fall of her chest.

 

She finally said something the second day.

 

_“We’re never getting out of here.”_

 

She’d looked at him through her dirty hair and he hadn’t been able to see her face in the shadows. It wasn’t until he asked her name that she looked up properly and (while still in her face) her hair fell away enough to allow the light to illuminate her features. She had two black eyes and a split lip and cheek, but what’d shocked him most was how young she was, barely fifteen.

 

When he asked her how long she’d been there, her answer made his throat close.

 

_“Last day I remember is January 4, 1998 and I was ten.”_

 

She was fifteen. She’d been a prisoner for five years.

 

No one had come to see them in a long time but when someone did Clint had wished they hadn’t. The man ignored him, instead going straight for her. He was forced to watch as the man lifted her with ease and pressed her against the wall. The man hiked her legs up by his waist and she lifted her hands to steady herself on his shoulders before he proceeded to rape her there against the wall. She hadn’t cried out or made any noise. In fact her head fell back against the stone wall of the cave room. Her eyes were glazed over and there was no life in them. It was like she wasn’t even there.

 

When the man was done he’d left her there with her underwear still on the floor. She sat slumped against the wall, her skirt still half up. She didn’t move, didn’t say anything.

 

Even now Clint calls that week the worst week of his life (if he talks about it which he rarely does). The only person that knows all the details is Bruce because he’d found the bird man on the roof on a particularly bad night. He told Bruce that night how only hours before he was rescued he was forced to watch as the man pressed his gun to her head and how she hadn’t even blinked, not caring if he killed her or not.

 

That night he told Bruce an even deeper secret.

 

_“Natasha reminded me of her when I met her. That’s why I didn’t kill her, I could save Natasha. I couldn’t save **her**.”_

Her face haunts him. She’s not the last person he sees with that look, but he can move passed the others while he can’t move past _her_. She was the first innocent he lost and her broken blue eyes would never stop haunting his nightmares.


End file.
